The Wisdom of Walt: Leadership Lessons from the Happiest Place on Earth

In The Wisdom of Walt, Professor Jeffrey Barnes distills Walt Disney's vision, his knowledge, and his methods into a series of actionable lessons. Through historical vignettes about Disneyland, as well as plentiful examples and exercises, Barnes creates a framework through which you can apply Walt's wisdom to improve your career, your company, and your life.

The Progress City Primer: Stories, Secrets, and Silliness from the Many Worlds of Walt Disney

From the Progress City Archives comes this collection of tall tales and true from the annals of the Walt Disney Company. From Walt's on-set antics to the creations of modern-day imagineers, we've put together a sampling of stories from throughout Disney history.

The Disneyland Story: The Unofficial Guide to the Evolution of Walt Disney's Dream

The Disneyland Story: The Unofficial Guide to the Evolution of Walt Disney's Dream is the story of how Walt Disney's greatest creation was conceived, nurtured, and how it grew into a source of joy and inspiration for generations of visitors. Despite his successors' battles with the whims of history and their own doubts and egos, Walt's vision maintained momentum, thrived, and taught future generations how to do it Walt Disney's way.

How to Be Like Walt: Capturing the Disney Magic Every Day of Your Life

How to Be Like is a "character biography" series: biographies that also draw out important lessons from the life of their subjects. In this new book - by far the most exhaustive in the series - Pat Williams tackles one of the most influential people in recent history. While many recent biographies of Walt Disney have reveled in the negative, this audiobook takes an honest but positive look at the man behind the myth. For the first time, the book pulls together all the various strands of Disney's life into one straightforward, easy-to-listen-to tale.

Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service

Exceeding expectations rather than simply satisfying them is the cornerstone of the Disney approach to customer service. Now, in honor of the 10th anniversary of the original Be Our Guest, the Disney Institute, which specializes in helping professionals see new possibilities through concepts not found in the typical workplace, is revealing even more of the business behind the magic of quality service.

Theme Park Design: Behind the Scenes with an Engineer

Have you ever gone to a theme park and wondered, "How did they do that?" At last there's a book that tells you. Theme Park Design reveals the secrets behind some of the world's greatest attractions. Take a peek behind the scenes, with a theme park engineer. Aimed at theme park enthusiasts, the book features behind the scenes information based upon author Steve Alcorn's 35 years designing attractions.

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination

Seven years in the making and meticulously researched - Gabler is the first writer to be given complete access to the Disney archives - this is the full story of a man whose work left an ineradicable brand on our culture but whose life has largely been enshrouded in myth.

Creating Magic: 10 Common Sense Leadership Strategies from a Life at Disney

The secret for creating magic in our careers, our organizations, and our lives is simple: outstanding leadership, the kind that inspires employees, delights customers, and achieves extraordinary business results. No one knows more about this kind of leadership than Lee Cockerell, the man who ran Walt Disney World Resort operations for over a decade.

Disney U: How Disney University Develops the World's Most Engaged, Loyal, and Customer-Centric Employees

When it comes to world-class employees, few organizations rival Disney. Famous for their friendliness, knowledge, passion, and superior customer service, Disney's employees have been fueling the iconic brand's wild success for more than 50 years. How has Disney succeeded in maintaining such a powerful workforce for so many years? Why are so many corporations and executives drawn to study how Disney continues to exemplify service and leadership standards? The Disney University, founded by Van France, trains the supporting cast that helps create the world-famous Disney Magic.

Universal Studios never really wanted to get into the theme park business. They wanted to be the anti-Disney. But when forced to do so, they did it in a big way. Despite the fits and starts of multiple owners, the parks have finally gained the momentum to mount a serious challenge to the Walt Disney Company. How did this happen? Who made it happen? What does this mean for the theme park industry?

Kenneth Cabot says:"History of Universal(with some mentions of Disney)"

The Disney Story: Chronicling the Man, the Mouse and the Parks

Attention, all Disney Fans! Do you enjoy learning about the Disney theme parks? Perhaps you're enamored with the man who was Walt Disney? Maybe you're just plain crazy for Mickey Mouse and the Disney big-screen features? No need to order your serving of Disney history and knowledge a la carte anymore.

The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company

The Pixar Touch is a lively chronicle of Pixar Animation Studios' history and evolution, and the "fraternity of geeks" who shaped it. With the help of visionary businessman Steve Jobs and animating genius John Lasseter, Pixar has become the gold standard of animated filmmaking, beginning with a short special effects shot made at Lucasfilm in 1982 all the way up through the landmark films Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and others.

The Disney Way: Harnessing the Management Secrets of Disney in Your Company, Third Edition

"Dream, Believe, Dare, Do...." Though four simple words, this carefully crafted credo lies at the heart of Walt Disney's enviable empire and has led The Walt Disney Company to prosperity for decades. As foremost experts on Disney, authors Bill Capodagli and Lynn Jackson return with an updated and expanded third edition of The Disney Way to show how organizations can incorporate this four-pillared credo to support any business, drive any team, and guide any leader to create immeasurable success.

The Dark Side of Disney

The Dark Side of Disney reveals all of the tips, tricks, scams, and stories that THEY don't want you to know about! Unabashedly unafraid of offending the family-oriented audiences catered to by other Disney travel guides, author Leonard Kinsey gives intrepid travelers access to the seamy, raunchy, and often hilarious underbelly of Walt Disney World. From cautionary tales of scoring illegal tickets, to thrilling accounts of exploring off-limits areas, to chronicles of drug-induced debauchery, this completely unauthorized guidebook will change the way you think about vacationing at "The Happiest Place on Earth".

From Dreamer to Dreamfinder: A Life and Lessons Learned in 40 Years Behind a Name Tag

Ron Schneider takes you on a journey through 40 years of personal triumph and corporate challenges. It's an intimate look into the creative worlds of Disney, Universal, and Six Flags Magic Mountain; a no-holds-barred memoir filled with wild characters and wilder concepts, complete with a step-by-step guide to how the magic is made!

The Customer Rules: The 39 Essential Rules for Delivering Sensational Service

The former EVP of Walt Disney World shares indispensible rules for serving customers with consistency, efficiency, creativity, sincerity, and excellence. Lee Cockerell knows that success in business - any business - depends upon winning and keeping customers. In 39 digestible, bite-sized chapters, Lee shares everything he has learned in his 40-plus-year career in the hospitality industry about creating an environment that keeps customers coming back for more. Here, Lee not only shows why the customer always rules, but also the rules for serving customers so well they'll never want to do business with anyone but you.

The Experience: The 5 Principles of Disney Service and Relationship Excellence

Co-author Bruce Loeffler spent 10 years at Disney World overseeing service excellence. He has partnered with Brian T. Church to show you how to bring that same level of care and value to your own organization. Based on the I. C.A.R.E. model, the five principles - Impression, Connection, Attitude, Response, and Exceptionals - give you a solid framework upon which to raise the level of your customer experience.

Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration

Creativity, Inc. is a book for managers who want to lead their employees to new heights, a manual for anyone who strives for originality, and the first-ever, all-access trip into the nerve center of Pixar Animation - into the meetings, postmortems, and "Braintrust" sessions where some of the most successful films in history are made. It is, at heart, a book about how to build a creative culture - but it is also, as Pixar co-founder and president Ed Catmull writes, "an expression of the ideas that I believe make the best in us possible."

Kingdom Keepers: The Return: Disney Lands, Book One

With the defeat of the Overtakers behind them, the five teenagers known as the Kingdom Keepers should be celebrating. By all accounts they saved Disneyland from certain destruction. Why then did their mentor leave one last puzzle for them to decipher? The Keepers must solve a puzzle of the past, or be crushed under an evil that makes the Overtakers seem like gentle souls.

Inside the Whimsy Works: My Life with Walt Disney Productions

In this never-before-published memoir from the files of The Walt Disney Archives, Disney Legend Jimmy Johnson (1917-1976) takes you from his beginnings as a studio gofer during the days of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to the opening of Walt Disney World Resort. Johnson relates dozens of personal anecdotes with famous celebrities, beloved artists, and, of course, Walt and Roy Disney.

We Don't Need Roads: The Making of the Back to the Future Trilogy

Long before Marty McFly and Doc Brown traveled through time in a flying DeLorean, director Robert Zemeckis and his friend and writing partner Bob Gale worked tirelessly to break into the industry with a hit. For the first time ever, the story of how these two young filmmakers struck lightning is being told by those who witnessed it. We Don't Need Roads includes original interviews with Zemeckis, Gale, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Huey Lewis, and over 50 others who contributed to one of the most popular and profitable film trilogies of all time.

The Kingdom Keepers: Disney after Dark

Using a cutting-edge technology called DHI - which stands for both Disney Host Interactive and Daylight Hologram Imaging - Finn Whitman, an Orlando teen, and four other kids are transformed into hologram projections that guide guests through the park. The new technology turns out, however, to have unexpected effects that are both thrilling and scary. Soon Finn finds himself transported in his DHI form into the Magic Kingdom at night. Is it real? Is he dreaming? Finn’s confusion only increases when he encounters Wayne, an elderly Imagineer who tells him that the park is in grave danger.

Publisher's Summary

We've all read about the experts: the artists, the scientists, the engineers - that special group of people known as Imagineers for The Walt Disney Company. But who are they? How did they join the team? What is it like to spend a day in their shoes?

Disney Legend Marty Sklar wants to give back to fans and answer these burning questions. When Marty was president of Walt Disney Imagineering, he created a list of principles and ideals for the team, aptly named Mickey's Ten Commandments. Using this code of standards as his organizational flow, Marty provides listeners with insights and advice from himself and dozens of hands-on Imagineers from around the globe. It's a true insider's look like no other!

This book started off fascinating and I couldnt put it down but the last half was drudgery. Way too many quotes. The author should have taken his own advice and known what to leave out of the story to keep it interesting.

I liked the Ten Commandments section the best. The book works well as a means for Sklar to share advice on professional development, whether your career goals are to be a Disney Imagineer, or success in other areas. I scored down on "story" because the middle was a collection of 1-2 line quotes from imagineers past and present that got a little tedious after a while.

Less reading email from people that happen to mention what a legend Marty Sklar is and more of how the book begins. It would be more interesting.

Have you listened to any of Jeff Cummings’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

yes, good

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

I don't know how that is possible... Have Marty Sklar sitting in front of a computer reading emails that all have a comment with how great Marty Sklar is and deleting the others?

Any additional comments?

I am a Disney fan and certainly admire from a business perspective what they have done in the parks, and Sklar is one of the few that is still around. It is very interesting to hear the approach to creating this successful theme park enterprise.<br/><br/>Overall, I believe I misunderstood the purpose of the book, I'm not a kid looking to be an imagineer, and not looking for career advice-which most of the second half of the book refers to with inserted email messages from previous Marty contacts. Maybe if I was it would have been more meaningful<br/><br/>I also found the book self serving. Sklar has no problem reading things he wrote that say how great Marty Sklar is. Though one of the key messages in the book is TEAMwork, Marty spends much time using the word "I" typically around the great things he has done and the great things people have said and wrote about him.

I was hoping for a bit more on Mickeys Ten Commandments. It was interesting. I don't think it gave much hope or clarity for someone wanting to work as an Imagineer. You need to be good at your field, be creative, open minded, flexible and a team player. After you have that- get in line and maybe a dart will choose your balloon.